Net Force

Monday, September 27th, 9:44 a.m. New York City

"Yes, I'll be there," Genaloni said. His voice was curt and he was irritated, but he tried, as always, to hold onto his temper. "Good-bye."

He put the phone's receiver down gently when what he wanted to do was slam it into its cradle hard enough to break both. Women. Jesus.

As wives went, Maria was probably as good as any. She stayed home, took care of the kids, supervised the maids and butler and cook and gardener, was active in charity affairs. He'd met her in college. She was smart, and she'd been drop-dead gorgeous when he'd married her. She worked out, and had spent some time under the knife, so she was still damned attractive for a woman her age — hell, any age; and if anything, she had gotten smarter, too. She looked good on his arm, was always dressed better than anybody else in any room they went to, but she was a pain in the ass sometimes. Because she was smart and good-looking, and because she came from a rich family, she was used to getting her way. She wanted his time, and she always wanted it most when he least had it to give. He was going to have to break a date with Brigette, his mistress, to go to some cure-a-disease ball his wife wanted him to go to, and he wasn't happy about it.

That Maria probably knew about Brigette and had done this on purpose also crossed his mind.

There was a tap on the doorjamb. He looked up and saw Johnny the Shark Benetti standing in the open doorway. Shark was a good name for Johnny. He was young, quick, and could cut you to tatters with a knife no longer than your finger. The Shark also had a degree in business from Cornell. As people in his organization retired or went away for legal reasons, Genaloni replaced them with equally tough but more educated ones. Sure, smart people had their drawbacks — too much ambition was usually part of the package, but you could deal with that. Bury a guy chin-deep in money, and mostly he would think long and hard before messing with the golden goose. Ignorant people caused more trouble in the long run. And in any event, you always watched your back — you never totally trusted anybody.

Johnny the Shark was holding Sampson's place until he returned.

If he returned. Whatever was going on with that, it stunk, and Genaloni didn't like it a damn bit.

"Yes?"

"Hey, Ray. Nobody we can touch has anything to say about Luigi. We put some serious money on the table, reached out to everybody who owes us favors, nothing. He's invisible."

"Keep looking." At least one fed was going to be sorry about this business, although there was no way to tell when the guy was going to buy it. The Selkie took his time, and it didn't do any good to try and hurry him.

The intercom cheeped.

"What?"

"It's your wife again."

"Jesus. I'm not here, okay? And I forgot my cell phone, too."

"Yes, sir."

Genaloni shook his head. He looked at Johnny, who was smiling.

Smiling. Jesus. "You're married, what, a year and a half?"

"Two years, come December 14th," Johnny said.

"Still on your damned honeymoon. Come back and see me in fifteen years and let's talk about women."

That brought another grin.

Genaloni shook his head. Johnny was twenty-four, which meant he still knew everything. Genaloni was old enough so that he realized he knew less every year that went by. "You study any history?"

"It was my minor."

Genaloni did know that, but it never hurt to let the help think you were a little slower than you actually were. And he was something of a history reader himself, when he had the time. He said, "You know who Mary Katherine Horony was?"

Johnny searched his memory. Frowned. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"She was Hungarian, a hooker, went by the name of Big Nose Kate."

"Oh. Doc Holliday's girlfriend?"

"Good to see that degree means something. Kate was a whore, a drunk, a brawler. She screwed and drank and fought her way across the Old West, ran with Holliday, the Earps, some other real dangerous dudes."

Johnny nodded. "Uh-huh."

"She could have quit once she hooked up with Doc, but she couldn't settle down. She kept going back to the life, even while she and Holliday were together. And even when she was at home, she wasn't your shy and demure type. She broke him out of jail once after he gutted a man with a Bowie knife, and she clubbed a guard half to death to do it. She had a whorehouse in Tombstone in the 1880's, first one in town. Did it in a big tent, ran a dozen girls and sold a lot of cheap whiskey. People used to fight and get shot up there all the time. Plus she and Doc also used to beat the shit out of each other — and he didn't always wind up on top.

"After Holliday croaked from TB, old Kate kept whoring around for years. Got married, left her husband, moved around, kept kicking her heels up until she wound up in a nursing home. Died in 1940. She was ninety years old."

"Fascinating," Johnny said. He raised an eyebrow.

"So, here was this woman, a whore — which in those days was a damned dangerous job — with these hardcases all around her who'd just as soon shoot you as look at you. A woman who used to punch out Doc Holliday, one of the stone-coldest killers ever, and she was living in neighborhoods where you could get raped and murdered and nobody would blink."

"And your point…?"

"Kate outlived them all — the job, Holliday, the killers, the booze, the bad towns, everything." Genaloni smiled. "She died of old age." He paused, then said, "You know what the cavalry men used to say out in Dakota when they were trying to wipe out the Sioux? ‘If you're captured by the Indians, don't let them give you to the women.'

"A woman can cut off your nuts, cook ‘em with onions and make you eat them — and smile the whole time she's doing it. Remember that. No matter what your bride says, no matter how good she is in bed, you keep your business to yourself. The prisons are full of guys who blabbed shit to their women and then pissed them off. Women are good for a lot of things, but you don't trust one with your life. Never."

"I'll remember that."

"Good. Now go find out why the feds are hiding Luigi." After the kid had gone, Genaloni smiled to himself. That wasn't a bad little lecture. He'd have made an okay professor, he always figured.